Take a closer look at our stats, accolades and facts that reflect why Clarkson delivers a great return on education; how our mission, vision, values and plans for the future honor our history; the university leaders who bring perspective and expertise to our boundary-spanning education; and our appreciation of a global community that compels us to engage in solutions and innovative technologies to create real wealth for society.

Wanted: Competitive collaborators, thinkers, doers, dreamers and believers who want to go beyond the status quo and join teams creating what’s next. The Clarkson experience is designed for talented and ambitious students who want a hands-on and global ready education. The results lead to accelerated career opportunities, rewarding and creative personal lives, and deep lifetime connections. Are you ready? Meet our admissions team and explore your options.

Get publicity for your story or check out our news releases, Clarkson news clips, social media conversations, photo galleries and extensive calendar of on and off campus events, meetings, symposia, sports and more. See why at Clarkson we are the place and time to defy convention by continually asking “What’s next?” The answers can come from anywhere—undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, staff and alumni—and we expect (and respect) the unexpected.

For Faculty & Staff

Contact Marketing & External Relations

Clarkson University Research Team Analyzes Health of Lake Ontario

Several Clarkson University researchers set out from the Port of Oswego earlier this summer on a four-day journey to determine what contaminants are affecting the health of Lake Ontario.

A team from Clarkson and the State Universities of New York at Oswego and Fredonia made the trek on the research vessel Lake Guardian, which the Environmental Protection Agency uses to monitor the Great Lakes.

Researchers worked around the clock while offshore to collect several dozen air and water samples, looking for traces of contamination in organisms like plankton and algae that are at the bottom of the Lake’s food chain. Calm waters and clear skies helped the effort.

In 2011, the EPA awarded Clarkson a $6.5 million five-year grant, in partnership with SUNY Fredonia and SUNY Oswego, to conduct the Great Lakes Fish Monitoring and Surveillance Program (GLFMSP), part of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. Each year, researchers spend time collecting and analyzing samples on one of the Great Lakes; this year, it was Ontario’s turn.

They will spend the next six to eight months analyzing the samples and testing for pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and a host of other regulated contaminants that could be traveling up the food chain and harming the ecosystem, according to Clarkson Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Thomas Holsen, associate director of Clarkson's Center for Air Resources Engineering and Science.

“The Great Lakes are an important natural resource. Millions of people get drinking water from the Great Lakes. We rely on them for recreation,” Holsen said. “Contaminants in the lakes are something we’ve been concerned about for a long time.”

The team is also on the lookout for “emerging contaminants,” which include fragrances used in shampoo and other products, flame retardants, pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals. Sewage treatment plants have a difficult time treating emerging contaminants, which can be discharged into lakes and streams, Holsen said.

More needs to be discovered about the biological effects of emerging contaminants in the Great Lakes, Holsen said. Clarkson’s project has shown that many of them exist in low concentrations.
“People should realize that their actions can impact the Great Lakes,” Holsen said. “The things they use in everyday life, or pour down the drain, a lot of those things end up out in the lakes.”

This was the third Great Lakes Research excursion for Mark Omara, a chemical and biomolecular engineering Ph.D. student at Clarkson; he accompanied the research team on Lake Superior in 2011 and Lake Huron in 2012.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity as a student to get to learn actually how to do things practically. It’s all this hands-on experience that provides for a richer and fuller graduate school experience that I think will be particularly beneficial in the course of my career,” Omara said.

The excursions have inspired Omara to plan to continue researching the Great Lakes throughout his career. He has enjoyed the opportunity to contribute to a greater understanding of the lakes.
“It helps me appreciate the need to conserve the ecosystem we have, to protect it,” Omara said.

Clarkson University launches leaders into the global economy. One in five alumni already leads as a CEO, VP or equivalent senior executive of a company. Located just outside the Adirondack Park in Potsdam, N.Y., Clarkson is a nationally recognized research university for undergraduates with select graduate programs in signature areas of academic excellence directed toward the world's pressing issues. Through 50 rigorous programs of study in engineering, business, arts, sciences and health sciences, the entire learning-living community spans boundaries across disciplines, nations and cultures to build powers of observation, challenge the status quo, and connect discovery and engineering innovation with enterprise.

A video about the research project can be found at http://youtu.be/4xc1aqnQn48 .